Bill Gates on whether he’s happy with Steve Ballmer’s performance

In an interview with Charlie Rose for “CBS This Morning,” Microsoft chairman and co-founder Bill Gates talked about the work of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation but he also offered some thoughts on whether he’s happy with CEO Steve Ballmer

When asked if he was happy with Ballmer’s performance, Gates said: “Well, he and I are two of the most self-critical people — you can imagine. There were a lot of amazing things that Steve’s leadership got done with the company last year: Windows 8 is key to the future, the Surface computer, Bing — people have seen is a better search product, Xbox. Is it enough? No. He and I are not satisfied that, in terms of breakthrough things, that we’re doing everything possible.”

Rose then asked: “Every time you see an article about Microsoft, it’s not so much about the success of Surface or Bing… It is about what happened at Microsoft or five things you ought to do to Microsoft. When you see these things, what do you think?

Gates replied, laughing: “We appreciate the advice.”

Gates also admitted that there are things like cell phones where Microsoft didn’t get out with an early lead. When asked why or if it was just something that the company missed, Gates said: “That’s too complicated. We didn’t miss cell phones. But the way that we went about it didn’t allow us to get the leadership. It’s clearly a mistake.”

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Welcome to Microsoft Pri0: That's Microspeak for top priority, and that's the news and observations you'll find here from Seattle Times technology reporter Matt Day. Send tips or comments to mday@seattletimes.com.